Series: Regions and Cities

This book brings together academics, members of European
institutions, and regional and national level policymakers in order
to assess the performance and direction of EU Cohesion policy
against the background of the most significant reforms to the
policy in a generation. Responding to past criticisms of the
effectiveness of the policy, the policy changes introduced in 2013
have aligned European Structural and Investment Funds with the
Europe 2020 strategy and introduced measures to improve strategic
coherence, performance and integrated development. EU Cohesion
Policy: Reassessing performance and direction argues that policy
can only be successfully developed and implemented if there is
input from both academics and practitioners. The chapters in the
book address four important issues: the effectiveness and impact of
Cohesion policy at European, national and regional levels; the
contribution of Cohesion policy to the Europe 2020 strategy of
smart, sustainable and inclusive growth; the importance of quality
of government and administrative capacity for the effective
management of the Funds; and the inter-relationships between
institutions, territory and place-based policies. The volume will
be an invaluable resource to students, academics and policymakers
across economics, regional studies, European studies and
international relations. The Open Access version of this book,
available at www.tandfebooks.com, has been made available under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0
license.